Black and White in Black and White

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This early time of year always provides an opportunity for special reflection and education on diversity in the United States, and especially on the cultural and social impacts of African-American leaders, innovators and everyday citizens throughout American history.

The Museum on Main is taking advantage by shining a spotlight on race relations in America at the turn of the 20th century by hosting a traveling exhibit beginning next week, “Black and White in Black and White: Images of Dignity, Hope and Diversity in America.”

“This exhibit challenges stereotypes, and it’s important to break through them if we’re truly going to recognize one another’s humanity,” museum curator Ken MacLennan said in an interview ahead of the exhibit opening.

Arriving in downtown Pleasanton just after Martin Luther King Jr. Day and continuing through Black History Month, the aptly scheduled exhibit centers around original photographs by John Johnson, an African-American photographer whose work primarily focused on community portraits in his neighborhood in Lincoln, Neb. from 1910 to 1925.

Johnson’s photographs are particularly noteworthy for depicting the African-American middle class and for capturing images of black and white residents together, along with other racial groups — both uncommon for Johnson’s era, according to MacLennan.

The display will feature 31 large-scale reproductions of Johnson’s original photos and accompanying interpretive text, along with glass negatives, photography accessories, a camera with tripod from that time period, a 15-minute documentary and books from the era.

The photographs are mainly posed portraits of people of all ages in a variety of settings.

A lot can be learned by just examining the images for some of the basic characteristics of the people, such as the clothes they wear, what they’re holding or where they are, according to MacLennan.

“To cite one of the more obvious examples, many of Johnson’s subjects hold books, newspapers or letters to signify literacy — a skill that white people often assumed that black people lacked,” the curator said.

Exposure to imagery, text and artifacts can be vital for educating people on the significance of an historical era and its relevance in the world today.

That remains especially true for African-Americans’ struggle for equality and the civil rights movement, according to Nadia Moshtagh, English department chair at Foothill High School.

Leading up to the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, Moshtagh spent time with her freshman students reading two of King’s most memorable writings: his “I Have a Dream” speech and his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

“It has opened up great conversations about present-day civil rights struggles. Connecting it to what’s going on in their lives and in the world today — it’s crucial,” Moshtagh said.

The Pleasanton community joined the rest of the country in commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday. The holiday, formally held on the third Monday in January, this year fell on what would have been King’s 89th birthday.

2018 will also mark a much more somber anniversary in the civil rights movement on April 4 — 50 years to the day since King was gunned down outside the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tenn.

Educating students, and the community at-large, about the impact of King, Malcolm X and other civil rights leaders and activists continues to remain important, according to Moshtagh.

“Teaching the history of discrimination, in addition to diverse representation in literature, and culturally competent teachers are vital for the development of empathy and understanding,” she said.

Across town at Fairlands Elementary School, students will get the chance to learn similar lessons in one of the most interactive and experiential Black History Month projects.

Led by teachers Kelly Lack and Jenny Eisenbies, Fairlands fifth-graders take part in a “living museum” each February, preparing informational speeches and exhibit-type displays about an African-American historical figure they’ve selected and researched.

The living museum takes over the school’s multipurpose room, where other classes are invited to visit with the fifth-graders, who have tables set up across the expansive hall, deliver speeches as their profile subject and help educate the other kids about the person and their era by highlighting their life and historical impact.

In many ways, photographer Johnson is one whose own story is emblematic of life for a black man in his era.

“(He) exemplifies both the limitations and the possibilities that African-Americans of the early 20th century faced,” MacLennan said.

A high school graduate who attended college, Johnson was listed in city directories as simply a laborer, although he took hundreds of standout photographs — many on expensive glass plates, “not the sort of thing a ‘laborer’ could expect to afford unless people were paying him for the pictures he took,” according to MacLennan said.

“In other words, Johnson was a professional photographer, even if the Lincoln city directory didn’t recognize him for it,” he said.

Johnson’s photographs, many taken during the height of the “New Negro Movement” of the early 1900s epitomized by the “Harlem Renaissance,” depict imagery not often shown during his era.

Notably, some photos spotlight African-Americans and white Americans interacting in their community, but perhaps just as important, according to MacLennan, was Johnson capturing the black middle class living in Lincoln.

“We’d like (the exhibit) to remind people that an African-American middle class isn’t a new thing, that not every black family in turn-of-the-century America was sharecropping in Mississippi,” MacLennan said.

African-American families like those in Lincoln at the time were also among those who left Nebraska for California in the teens and ’20s, “bringing their energy and ambition — and capital — to help build this state,” MacLennan said, adding:

“I don’t want to make it sound too rosy — we’re still talking about a pre-Brown v. Board of Education, largely segregated country here, and African-Americans were considered second-class citizens by white people pretty much everywhere — but it’s also important to know that people strained against those limits, building lives and livelihoods in spite of them.”

“Black and White in Black and White,” on display at the museum at 603 Main St. from next Wednesday through March 18, will also help Pleasanton residents and visitors visualize a diverse community striving to thrive in the face of discrimination and inequality, and how that relates to the world today.

“The struggle for equality isn’t over,” MacLennan said.

“We’re also going through a moment when the divisions in American society have been thrown into sharp relief, and it’s important to remind ourselves that, at the end of the day, we’re all still people — not only because that means we all have something in common, but because it means that we all deserve that basic level of respect and consideration that one human being owes any other human being.”

“Zakem Children and Friends” by John Johnson. (Photo courtesy of Douglas Keister Collection)
“Manitoba James and His Children” by John Johnson. (Photo courtesy of Douglas Keister Collection)
“Mamie Griffin” by John Johnson. (Photo courtesy of Douglas Keister Collection)
“Baseball Player” by John Johnson. (Photo courtesy of Douglas Keister Collection)
The Museum on Main’s upcoming exhibit “Black and White in Black and White” features 31 large reproductions of original photographs by early-1900s African-American photographer John Johnson, including “Boy with Hounds.” (Photo courtesy of Douglas Keister Collection)
The Museum on Main, downtown Pleasanton’s museum at 603 Main St. (File photo)